according to an October special from Vanity Fair magazine.
The article cites people close to the search who said that the Church began by seeking actresses who were already Scientologists. They were brought to the Church’s in-house studio and told they were auditioning for a movie, then asked a series of questions like “What do you think of Tom Cruise?”
Nazanin Boniadi – who was born in Tehran and raised in London – was selected to be Tom Cruise’s girlfriend between November 2004 until January 2005. “In a month-long preparation in October 2004, she was audited every day, a process in which she told a high-ranking Scientology official her innermost secrets and every detail of her sex life,” according to the article.
“Boniadi allegedly was told to lose her braces, her red highlights, and her boyfriend.”
When Boniadi met with Cruise in New York that month, “that’s when she first sensed that this was possibly going to be an arranged marriage,” according to the article. The two had dinner together and then spent the night at Trump Towers, where Cruise’s Scientology aides had rented a whole floor. The couple didn’t have sex, but Cruise did tell Boniadi that he’d “never felt this way before,” according to the article.
Boniadi had to sign two confidentiality statements, according to the article: The first statement was about non-disclosure of the initial “audition” process, the other about her time with Tom Cruise. This landed her in trouble after the love affair ran into difficulties.
Cruise’s frequent public displays of affection and his intense adoration overwhelmed Boniadi, causing her to distance herself from the superstar. This led to complaints from Tom Cruise: “I get more love from an extra than I get from you,” he reportedly complained to Boniadi.
Cruise’s Scientology aides eventually told Boniadi that it was over, and that Cruise “wants someone with her own power – like Nicole,” the actor’s erstwhile wife of 11 years.
Boniadi later broke down and told a friend at a Scientology center in Florida about her relationship with Cruise. The friend reported Boniadi, leading her to be punished for violating the terms of her confidentiality statement. She had to scrub toilets with a toothbrush, clean bathroom tiles with acid, dig ditches in the middle of the night and selling Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s Dianetics on street corners.
The Church of Scientology has denied those reports. “The Church does not punish people, especially in [that] manner,” a spokesperson told Vanity Fair.
Cruise has been married three times: with Mimi Rogers from 1987 to 1990 and with Nicole Kidman from 1990 to 2001. He has two children – a daughter, Isabella, 17, and a son, Connor, 18 – with Kidman. He began dating Katie Holmes in early 2005 and had a daughter, Suri, in 2006 with her. They married in late 2006, but Holmes filed for a divorce this year.
Boniadi was born in Tehran and was only 20 days old when her parents took her to London, where she was raised and graduated from a private school. She has a bachelor’s in biology from the University of California at Irvine, where she did research on cancer and also received an award as a student.
She is an avid skier and scuba diver, and her artistic talents range from belly-dancing to playing the violin. She has acted in TV shows as well as movies, having appeared alongside superstars such as George Clooney and acted in movies like Charlie Wilson’s War. She played Leyla Mir in the Emmy Award-winning drama, General Hospital.
She is an official spokesperson with Amnesty International and has campaigned for the release of Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who was imprisoned for “crimes against the state.”
